♪ caroline: from bloomberg's world headquarters in new york and right here in london, i'm caroline hyde. joe: i'm joe weisenthal. romaine: and i'm romaine bostick. a less than stellar jobs report, but not enough to knock the markets down. joe: the question is, what do you miss -- what'd you miss? caroline: the economic recovery

is going full steam, but there is still a load of work to be done. there continues to be incredible difficulties issuing the millions of people unemployed. there are calls for more stimulus, which come without gop support, it would seem. many pockets of the population are struggling. joe, investors cheered stocks today, because with the bad news comes hopes of more relief in the sign of a package. but the economic face of it, the numbers are not where they need to be. joe: in the short-term, we have been talking earlier this week about how the data was looking better. everyone has been predicting this winter slowdown. it may be a little worse on the labor market front, at least according to this one report that we got today. nonfarm payrolls just 49 k gains, about 100 k shy of

expectations. the labor participation rate fell backward, so overall, a disappointing report. romaine: a disappointing report, but you have to look at these things in aggregate and put together all the economic data. even if you put it all together, there is still a full case to be made for this economy. joe: joining us to discuss, bloomberg news economic policy reporter matt bosler. what stood out to you? matt: it is that continue story about what's going on in the leisure and hospitality sector, with the restaurant unemployment. we all know very well that that sector is being shut down right now by the virus. we are not really expecting much in the way of job gains there before the virus is under control, so that's kind of on hold for now. i think some of the less

optimistic aspects of this report are the fact that job losses are broadening out beyond just that leisure and hospitality sector that we would be expecting to do poorly right now. when you kind of take a look at the numbers, excluding that sector, it really underscores that we have a long road ahead of us in terms of the labor market recovery, and this is not all necessarily going to snap right back as soon as people are able to go back to restaurants again. caroline: in terms of other sectors where we have seen -- there has been talks of manufacturing doing well, areas of somewhat robust growth in the most battered sectors continues. where are we seeing surprising resilience or other variation? matt: yes, so some of those sectors like you mentioned

manufacturing for example, that is one that started to backslide a little bit in january. there are some sectors like construction as well that you not think would be too heavily impacted by the virus, but that is also turning lower. another one that's really interesting is health care, right? at the end of the pandemic, we might have expected that you would not see so many job losses in that sector, but then we found out the way that these hospitals work, their financial structure, they have to lay off a lot of people when they are so focused on the virus and not able to do other things, like elective surgeries and things hospitals do. that was another sector where again, these sectors had been growing pretty steadily since april in terms of employment, but we saw some of them turn lower in january again for the first time since april. if you look at this chart you are showing on your screen, this is the confusion. looking across industries, it

shows that number dipping below 50, which shows more industries are subtracting jobs than adding jobs for the first time since april. that kind of underscores the weakness right now, which is pretty broad-based. romaine: matt, i am curious about the drop we saw in transportation, warehousing. i was under the impression that that part of the economy was doing somewhat well, considering the uptick in e-commerce and the general idea that people were still spending in a fashion that would require transportation and warehousing. what's happening there? matt: part of that is we had a big surge in those jobs over the past two months in the run-up to christmas, and we have had record package freight and that sort of thing. some of what we saw in january was that pulling back a little bit from getting overextended, but another interesting thing to

note on that front, we got annual revisions to some of these industry employment data today, and one thing i think kind of got lost in the shuffle is that before those revisions, it looked like the transportation and warehousing you were talking about had made up all the job losses that had happened there since february. the revisions show there is a bit of a whole there as well -- a bit of a hole there as well. romaine: matt bosler, thank you for breaking down those numbers. on the speculation surrounding the apple card, apple did hold talks with hyundai and kia motors are out -- about building an electric vehicle, but those discussions have been paused. the person familiar with the matter saying apple is discussing similar plans with other automakers, so there is no real timetable or details about when any of this will materialize.

we will be back in a moment. from new york and london, this is bloomberg. ♪

joe: -- caroline: let's get you up to speed with the latest breaking news over apple. it was holding talks with the likes of hyundai and kia, but the talks paused recently, we understand. we also understand they are discussing similar plans with other manufacturers. help to break us all down -- here to help us break it down is ed ludlow. are they working towards it more in the longer term? ed: that's part of the issue. we don't know when the talks will be revived or if they were revived, what it would lead to. according to sources, not

only are talks on pause, but apple is talking with other manufacturers about a partnership as well. if there is one lesson in covering this beat, making prototypes is very easy and mass-producing electric vehicles, especially sophisticate one with self-driving capabilities, is very hard. the latest is those talks have been put on pause. one of the difficulties is within the hyundai group, it is not clear if it should be hyundai motors that is pursuing this with apple or the kia brand specifically. that is one of the sticking points. romaine: this is the question i am curious about. the fact that this is getting delayed or whatever you want to call it, is this a reflection of apple's commitment, or lack of commitment, or is there no one else out there to make this thing for them, at least at this stage?

ed: as you know, our fantastic colleague mark gurman has reported that the apple car is something like half a decade away from reality anyway. from inception to production, all ev's take a long time to get to that point. the issue with apple is, the iphone for example, it is put together by third parties. in terms of capacity, a lot of these names we are talking about, just as an example here, there are existing manufacturing plants that are set up to produce combustion engine cars. if you look at the adjustments tesla has had to make to make it into an ev plant or transforming an old mitsubishi plant in illinois, it takes billions of dollars of investment to change those plans from ones that build gas cars to ev's. the big question for the automotive industry is how seriously is apple taking this? given apple's scale, its size,

the cash it has in the bank, one would assume that if they are taking it. slick, and given apple's command of the global supply chain, it is something automakers might view as a serious threat. joe: obviously, the market is telling companies that there is a lot of premium to be paid for automotive tech. to what degree do signals from investors catalyze more investment, whether it is from tech companies with a legacy auto companies that will speed up their efforts in this space? ed: you and i have discussed this, with spac deals in the ev space as well. you have policy support not just from the u.s. and biden, but the you can boris johnson as well. if you think about the consumer, the car is the most significant purchase you make in your lifetime after a house, and at some point, with all the 2030

targets, there will be this big wave of transformation to get in on the eve of conversion. the point is for the companies, which one do you deploy capital on and when do you get in at the right time? the core of it is that it is capital-intensive, and investors are willing right now to put money in that process. even if something has free revenue or no -- to show with it. caroline: clearly the right time to be focusing in on electric vehicles, with the super bowl. gm is in on it, apple is in on it, but how quickly will this come online and what will it add to apple's overall margin, because a b.i. analyst has said from a proper ability sort of view, this will not be great. ed: you have to go on precedent. you look at tesla, and they have proved that producing electric

vehicles profitably, if you strip about the tax credits they get, is difficult. apple's day-to-day business with the iphone and ipad, they target the luxury buyer and the u.s. and china. the assumption is that the car would reflect that as well, be a luxury product or a high and audits. what it means for apple's bottom line, i don't know. bloomberg's reporting is pretty clear that this vehicle is some ways away from fruition, but it will be a high-tech product capable in terms of self-driving, and would come with a significant price tag. romaine: well, yeah. it's apple. it is going to come with a significant price tag. i am curious, though, with regards to the strategy here. this is not a company that just without a product to put out a product. there is a massive profit incentive that they have built into their business model and it is hard to see that with a car, particularly if they are building it.

if they are building software and other components and go into some other cars, that's understandable. is there a sense here that tim cook really wants to go down this road of being on auto manufacturer, or did they want to be in this race to the ev for some form or another? ed: based on today's story and past reporting by bloomberg, they would outsource manufacturing to a partner rather than take on manufacturing themselves. it is also a question of competency. i talked to a lot of market participants, and the theme of the last year in ambitious partnerships, you see it with oems and automakers, they make investments in specialists, ev startups. apple has a small team of engineers working on things like that, but the broad expectation is that you outsource those capabilities to the companies and teams that know it best.

on the manufacturing side, that is the key issue. that is why the auto industry should be paying attention, because it is not a simple thing to set up a car factory and start pumping out ev's. joe: our thanks to ed ludlow with the scoop on apple. coming up, we turn to washington. republican senator mitt romney proposing one of the largest child benefit packages everywhere ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ -- benefit packages ever. this is bloomberg. ♪

♪ romaine: today we are focused on the economy and that jobs report, and what it means for the economy. joe, a lot of talk about the biden stimulus and, $1.9 trillion. we have also heard from

republican senator mitt romney, coming out with a plan of his own. joe: the utah senator coming out with a ambitious child care tax credit. $550 per child per month in cash benefits to families. it would begin mid pregnancy and would be offset with eliminating --, but it is an interesting proposal getting a lot of attention right now. caroline: a load of attention, when we don't think about this jobs report, but last jobs report, where every single job lost in the month of december was a woman's job on the back of it. real focus now, of course, on caregiving in particular and what the ramifications are in terms of that. joe: joining us with washington -- from washington with more, director of welfare policy at the ms -- center.

thank you so much for joining us . how is giving a check to families every single month for the number of children they have, how is it a conservative proposal? >> the way i think about this is , for a long time, conservatives had a sort of antigovernment orientation focused on the quantitative side rather than the qualitative side. what mitt romney has put forward with his plan is a focus on the qualitative aspect of governance reform, in this case, what is the government doing to support conservative values, like marriage, family and life? joe: there is a broader question here about, when you make something permanent here, typically, this would be the talking points of people on the republican side. you would say oh, you are creating disincentives for you to work or do things on your own

here. what will be the argument, assuming romney is going to try and push this through, what will be the argument he makes to his side of the aisle that this is not only good for the economy, but is keeping in the spirit of what the republican party is supposed to stand for? >> i work in d.c., i work in the policy space. the establishment in d.c. is routed to 1996. so many experts that talk about poverty on the left and the right are members of that debate. this will invoke people's memories of afdc, and the big issue here, they are not comparable. the big issue why afdc created it and has this perception was the benefit. in some cases, dollar per dollar. that creates a poverty trap. the debate in 1996 resolve that

trap, but it has not filled the gaps. as your colleague mentioned with the caregiving economy, with the pandemic shutting down schools and piled care centers, people are turning to their families, to their relatives, to the proverbial church basement. the question is whether that childcare policy will accommodate additional families and families with alternative childcare formations. caroline: it is interesting how this negotiation has become such a bipartisan approach. samuel, i will hop back to an interview we did earlier in the week with someone else who has worked in washington for a very long time, for the obama administration in particular, focusing on women and girls. she spoke with great data about how bipartisan this child caregiving expectation could be. take a listen. >> this is absolutely a bipartisan issue. we did a survey in december on what voters thought about a

comprehensive caregiving solution. we found that not only do nine out of 10 democrats report a solution -- support a solution like this, eight out of 10 republican support it. caroline: clearly buying across the aisle. as it stands, do you think the policy will get through on both sides of the aisle? many a democrat or worried about the amount you need to take away from other policies to families. >> yeah, so the biden credit is going to happen one way or another. question is, do republicans want to have a say and set the terms and what ends up passing? at this point, there are probably some sleepers out there waiting to show their support for this. maybe they would never support this in the abstract or outside the context of a pandemic. but right now, republicans are not in a position to stay no. -- say no. what they can do is step up and say, we are going to do this in

a way that is conservative on the fiscal side and the values side. joe: we already heard a couple of republicans come out and criticize it, to some extent rubio and lee, who have a history of speaking along similar lines of using the tax code to promote families, to promote childcare. but you do think there may be some sleeper boats out there? >> yes, just specifically because the train has left the station. this thing will pass, whether biden designs it or whether romney has a say in how it is designed. if more republicans can get on board, they will have their input. the romney plan is not the final iteration whatsoever. i will say though, that this idea of having a massive payroll refundable child credit, which is what senator leanne senator rubio proposed, this is not welfare. one way or another, we are doing

big transfers to families. the question is if we do that in a way that is simple and deliverable and easy to administer, or do we have to pretend it is tax relief and checksum boxes? joe: i am curious, this money is coming from the federal level. is there some sense that if you structure it in a way that it came through at the state level, funnel it to the states, and have their programs, that that might make it a bit more palatable? >> in some ways, this is a boon for federalists. passing this would not just be a boon for poor families, but poor states, states that are unable to administer this on their own. caroline: really interesting. thank you for coming and talking us through this policy. the canaan group is focused on poverty.

romain, we have also got -- listening in on our podcast sometime. romaine: but we have to talk about a really important issue that i have been wondering about all day long. what is in joe weisenthal's refrigerator? joe: i think various frozen, bags of frozen premade goods from trader joe's these days. romaine: i believe that, that's not a surprise at all. caroline: i miss trader joe's. romaine: [inaudible] joe: i think so. the one with brady? he's good, i hear, so i am going to bet on him. everyone should follow romaine on twitter. he has been doing these short videos -- they are really good. i want to see a bunch of followers right after this. romaine: you are like the king of twitter. joe: check it out. caroline: give them a bit of

love. i always refer to you as sir romain. that's it for what'd you miss. romaine: if you're in australia, guess what? "daybreak: australia" is coming up next. have a great day, everyone. this is bloomberg. ♪

♪ emily: this is "bloomberg technology." in the next hour, game stop, worst week ever, still up since the start of the rally but this week leaving an $18 billion hole. biotech emerges as the new favorite of the retail investor crowd. what next? we will look at what the memes are telling us.